By Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake –

The United States Armada seems stranded half way around the world in the Indian Ocean whose energy trade routes it seeks to blockade to stymie Asian economies amid the fog of war. In the western reach of the vast Indian Ocean (IO), far from home bases in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the American Armada assembled against Iran is spilling blood and treasure that the US can ill afford.

South and Southeast Asia, and China, the workshop of the world, are global growth hubs at this time. Perhaps President Trump reckons that by starving these economies of fuel and fertilizer from West Asia he may “Make America Great Again” (MAGA), and shore up the exorbitantly privileged Petrodollar? The oil backed US greenback’s global reserve currency status is under pressure given America’s whopping $39 trillion deficit, and the rise of the Chinese Petro Yuan.

Stretched thin, the US war machine is valiantly trying to blockade the Straits of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman in the Arabian Sea, all of which are part of the ancient Indian Ocean maritime Silk Route. This Silk Route of the Seas connected the supercontinent of Asia and its great civilizations for millennia- long, long before the United States came into existence in the new world.

These past and present Afro-Asian Sea Lanes of Communication (SLOC), are part of the modern Chinese Belt and Road (BRI) for global connectivity, and constitute the world’s Superhighway for energy, trade and submarine data cable routes. It was at the center of the same Indian Ocean in the Seas of Sri Lanka that a US torpedo sank the IRIS Dena, killing 84 Iranian sailors, while causing environmental damage and affecting local fisheries and tourist livelihoods in the first week of the US-Israel war on Iran.

Across maritime Asia there is a growing perception that America, an Atlantic and Pacific Ocean county, has NO right to blockade Indian Ocean sea lanes with its environment despoiling war machine, of aircraft carriers, submarines, missiles, bombs, drone warfare and other environment despoiling war toys.

Monsoon Asia’s Sea Lanes and Weather Warfare

Does Trump reckon that he may crash the ‘Asian 21^st Century’ and shore up the exorbitantly privileged US Petrodollar through energy colonialism and occupation of the Maritime Silk Route? Oil grabbing, energy infrastructure destruction, and taxing global supply routes while playing war games with Middle East proxy, Israel, seem par for Trump’s course at this time.

Indian Ocean Sea Lanes of Communication (SLOC), forged and traversed by monsoon winds and rains for millennia, have been increasingly subject to geoengineering, staged climate disasters and weather warfare, a la ‘Operation Popeye’ during the Vietnam War. Operation Popeye was a Cloud seeding program to extend monsoon rains to drawn the Viet Cong fighters in mud during the American occupation of Indo-Chine.

Monsoon weather warfare as a form of hybrid economic warfare against South and Southeast Asia was evident in a series of devastating twister storms unleashed last year on Aceh, North Sumatra, Indonesia, at the Strait of Malacca Choke point and Sri Lanka, another geostrategic SLOC chokepoint, after which US Hercules planes landed in Sri Lanka. Currently, the US and UK continue the illegal neocolonial occupation of the Chagos Island with the Diego Garcia military– base due southwest of Sri Lanka at the center of the IO.

With fuel prices through the roof and blackouts in many countries, ridding the Indian Ocean of the US war machine and sending the American Armada back to the Atlantic Ocean is now a priority in Monsoon Asia.

Demilitarizing and shutting down foreign, mainly Euro-American military bases to end neocolonial occupation and looting of fisheries and sea bed mineral resources which belong to the littoral peoples of the Indian Ocean World is increasingly a security priority -to return to a modicum of Peace and Prosperity in the region.

Imperial Overreach? Oil Grabbing in Venezuela, Iran; blockading Cuba

With the US Armada treading water in the Indian Ocean to blockade Iranian ports, a Russian tanker recently bought oil to Cuba in the Caribbean Sea – off the coast of Florida.

The Socialist government of Cuba had been long sanctioned, and is now blockaded, starved of fuel and strangled by the Trump regime. Marco Rubio, Secretary of State seeks regime change in his country of ancestral origin, much as happened earlier this year in Venezuela and Iran.

Russia discreetly stated that the oil delivery to Cuba which has suffered extended blackouts was a ‘humanitarian’ gesture.  The Russian tanker, Anatoly Kolodkin docked in Cuba in late March 2026, delivering approximately 730,000 barrels of crude oil to the Port of Matanzas.

Shades of American Imperial Overstretch: Has President Trump’s operation Epic Fury to oil-grab in Iran, fresh from the oil-grab in Venezuela to control global oil supply, markets and pricing to shore up the exorbitantly privileged Petrodollar come a cropper in the Indian Ocean? Meanwhile, Iran allied Yemeni Houthis (Ansarallah), have also threatened to block the Red Sea!

Trump lifted sanctions on Iranian and Russian oil earlier this month only to do a volte face, moving to blockade the Straits of Hormuz and Indian Ocean energy trade routes. Are the flip-flops and Disinformation meant to distract from attempts to take down the Asian Century, while pumping and dumping countries as much as stock and bond markets with exogenous economic oil shocks enabling Oil companies to make big profits?

Iran after all had said that the straits were open to friendly countries. The Disinformation and contradictory messaging as a maximum pressure tactic by Trump signal another broader, global agenda besides shutting down Iran’s uranium enrichment program. Control of Indian Ocean Sea Lanes to pump and dump Asian economies.

Presumably, Admirals of the American Armada would take note of these developments and history to look for an off ramp; a face saving Exit Strategy from the Indian Ocean World before Afro-Asia Unite to drive out the American Armada and restore the ‘Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace’

During the Cold War the Indian Ocean was demarcated a ‘Zone of Peace’ to be free of Nuclear weapons and big power rivalry by the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). The declaration of the Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace was led by the world’s first woman Head of State, Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike at the 1971 United Nations General Assembly. Resolution (2832) proposed by Sri Lanka, supported by Tanzania and NAM aimed to halt foreign military expansion, eliminate nuclear weapons, and remove great-power rivalries. It was formally adopted on December 1971, to create a secure maritime region.

The history and memory of the NAM initiative to declare the ‘Indian Ocean a Zone of Peace’ have not died in Asia or the Indian Ocean World despite invention of the “Indo-Pacific” to Partition, Divide and Rule the Indian Ocean World by US Central Intelligence Agency linked security think tanks and their research collies in Delhi.

It’s the Petrodollar, Stupid!

Ironically, President Trump claimed that the US blockade of the Straits of Hormuz that runs in Iran’s territorial waters was done to un-block it.

Iran however, has made it clear that the Straits of Hormuz which carries almost 20 percent of global fuel supply are open to friends in the Asian neighborhood and the Indian Ocean World. Ships that pass through Hormuz may need to pay a Toll in Petro Yuan — rather than the exorbitantly privileged Petrodollar for safe passage.

And here lies the rub. The US dollar which is a fiat currency or paper money without intrinsic value (unlike Gold for instance), is backed by Petroleum or Oil, which is the world’s most traded commodity. It is due to the near universal demand for oil that it is sometimes referred to as “black gold”.

However, the oil-backed Petrodollar is increasingly under pressure for many reasons, particularly, the ongoing transition to renewable energy sources like solar, wind and hydro, lowering demand, as well as, the BRICS de-dollarizing and trading in national currencies. Hence, the US push to monopolize oil sources, processing infrastructure, trade routes and choke points at this time also given the huge US deficit which puts pressure on the dollar which is increasingly an unsafe haven. The IMF has warned that America’s debt to GDP ratio is unsustainable.

Having first claimed that the purpose of moving the American Armada to the IO was to prevent Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, President Trump seems to have shifted goal posts to the Straits of Hormuz and control of Indian Ocean sea lanes via war on Iran. Energy supply chain disruption and blockade would of course starve Asian economies. Was this the Endgame of President Trump’s latest war of choice–taking down the Asian 21^st century to Make America Great Again? Mixed motives, none of which are particularly attractive are par for the course.

Energy Colonialism and IMF in the Fog of War

As a recent Primer the Tri-continental Institute noted: The US-Israeli war on Iran is exposing the Oil-Dollar-Wall Street complex that binds oil, financial markets, and dollar power, with consequences that reach far beyond the region.

A pattern of energy neocolonialism is emerging at this time as the US Armada tests the waters toward establishing a new normal of control across Indian Ocean SLOC, under the guise of a “free and open Indo-Pacific”. The blockade on Iranian ports and oil shipments establishes a US presence in the IO, even as US corporations profit maximize by rerouting energy supply chains and establishing new markets in Asia and other parts of the world, particularly in geostrategic countries that it seeks to control.

Amid the fog of war and Hormuz blockade, US oil companies sold overpriced American ‘light sweet crude’ oil and gas at exorbitant prices and transport cost to Asian countries already ensnared in Petrodollar Eurobond debt traps. If not for the blockade these countries would source cheaper energy closer home in Asia.

For instance, geostrategic Sri Lanka at the center of the Indian recently purchased American gas and oil at astronomical prices. Citizens saw a 25 percent increase overnight in gas prices. Meanwhile the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) purchased diesel at a whopping 286$ a barrel.

Russia’s offer to supply oil and gas at lower cost was cold shouldered by the Colombo regime, which wears a mask of neutrality, being caught in a Eurobond Petrodollar debt trap and subject to IMF advice and control over the Central Bank.

Energy has become a battleground for geopolitical control through development aid, loans, and other bilateral and multilateral assistance in the geostrategic island which has a high potential for renewables – solar and hydro – which are underutilized at this time.

Sri Lanka which staged a first ever Sovereign Default into the waiting arms of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in 2022, like other Eurobond USD debt trapped countries has lost economic sovereignty and Energy policy autonomy to the Washington Twins (IMF and World Bank) at this time and now buys exorbitantly priced US sourced energy with exorbitantly privileged USD that it does not have!

Meanwhile, Trump has described BRICS and attempts of Global South countries to become energy independent, de-dollarize and conduct bi-lateral trade in local currencies as an attack on the Petrodollar. Colombo’s political and business elites unable think beyond US threats continue to tango to the tunes of Washington and its Consensus.

IMF Reforms and Energy Corruption Rackets: The New Normal?

Energy Sector corruption and price gouging in the fog of war has become the new normal thanks also to IMF reforms of the Energy Sector, which fragmented the national electricity grid and infrastructure, while decimating oversight mechanisms. The substandard coal scandal in the headlines is but the tip of the iceberg of external networks embedded in the electricity sector which has been subject to IMF ‘reforms’ in the past 2 years.

Ironically, in the name of ‘good governance’, IMF-induced reforms have enabled unprecedented corruption rackets to thrive, while extending energy neocolonialism also as part of the green transition, now exacerbated in the fog of war and Energy Emergency.

Of course, corrupt officials at the Ceylon Electricity Board and Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC), have been also embolden by Ministers dancing to Washington’s oil sanction tunes. Just this week in Sri Lanka, the Minister of Power and Energy, Kumara Jayakody already under investigation for fertilizer and coal tender scams was finally forced to resign after the expose of the CPC purchase of diesel at $ 286 per barrel.

Was the Minister a casualty of US energy colonialism in the fog of Disinformation and War in Iran as much as IMF reforms to extend Energy colonialism in the geostrategic Indian Ocean island? Many shady energy deals like the US Gas deal pass through Dubai, Swiss and Singapore companies. Singapore, proximate to the Strait of Malacca choke point also houses a US military base, just like Dubai which is also the headquarters for Sri Lanka drug barons. Meanwhile, Malaysia and Indonesia on the Malacca Strait Choke Point were recently persuaded like Sri Lanka to sign defense corporation agreements with the US.

Finally, there are remarkable shades of the Covid-19 virus and vaccine Pandemic Emergency and global transport, trade and supply disruptions across world at this time.

The CV-19 panicdemic, global lockdown and supply chain disruption enabled massive wealth transfers from the Global South to north, Big Pharma profit maximizing with Emergency authorized mRNA injections and GAFAM Digital colonialism. Today oil companies and their stockholders are making a chilling killing on Trump’s energy markets chaos strategy.

Much like the Covid-19 chaos operation to disrupt the global economy, the current US blockade of Indian Ocean SLOC is being used to promote QR coded fuel rationing for tracking and surveilling populations for the Great Reset.

It is increasingly clear that the US Armada is testing IO waters to promote a new normal of energy colonialism to contain Asian economies and Make America Great Again (MAGA), but may need an Exit Strategy to return home soon to Atlantic and Pacific shores– before Asia Unites to evict it from the Indian Ocean World.

Donald Trump clearly overplayed his hand when he boasted that he would ‘destroy a civilization overnight’.

*To be continued..